Treats, No Tricks
by xotakux2002x
Summary: Itachi isn't having a very good Halloween, until he meets another boy named Kisame.


Itachi was not having a very good Halloween thus far.

His mother was unable to take him trick-or-treating this year, due to her pregnancy with Itachi's younger sibling (whom the weasel desperately hoped would be a boy). Instead, he'd been sent along with a group of neighborhood parents and an entire herd of nosy boys and girls, traveling from one house to another in one large group. Itachi didn't like people on a normal basis, and he especially didn't care for sugar-high six and seven-year-olds shoving their way towards the adult giving out sweets and then desperately thrusting their plastic buckets or bags forward to collect their precious candy. By the third house or so Itachi had gotten completely fed up with the entire affair and slipped out the back of the group away from the noise. He decided that trick-or-treating on his own would be much better.

After his escape, however, Itachi was only able to visit a few more houses before a couple of older boys cornered him and snatched away his plastic jack-o-lantern of candy, pushing him to the ground in the process and causing him to get grass stains on his ninja costume. The boys didn't seem to care as they walked off with their ill-gotten gains, and of course there wasn't a single adult around to help Itachi.

Needless to say, it was taking an awful lot of willpower on the weasel's part not to cry as he began to walk home, deciding that he was quite done with Halloween for this year.

"Hey! Hey, little ninja, wait up!"

Itachi stopped and turned around to see who was calling out, and if they were referring to him or some other ninjas. Much to his surprise, a slightly taller boy with his face painted to look like a shark was charging towards Itachi, carrying a burlap sack in one hand and a familiar looking jack-o-lantern in the other.

The boy slowed down as he approached Itachi, finally coming to a complete stop once he was in front of the weasel. "This is yours, right?" he asked, holding out the jack-o-lantern in offering. "Don't worry, those jerks won't bother you anymore!"

Itachi gratefully accepted his candy back, making the new boy smile and reveal rows of white pointy teeth. "I'm Kisame! Kisame Hoshigaki. And before you say anything about how great my shark costume is, you should know that it's real."

Itachi blinked in surprise. Cautiously, he raised his hand and began rubbing the shark's cheek with his thumb. It certainly didn't feel like paint, and none of the blue smudged or came off on his thumb; it would appear that Kisame was telling the truth. "Yeah, I know. I actually wanted to go as a ninja this year, but everyone said it was pointless 'cause people would just think I was trying to be a ninja-shark then."

Itachi blinked.

"I don't even know how that would work; would I be a shark that wants to be a ninja, or a ninja that thinks he's supposed to be a shark? Anyway, I got tired of everyone making fun of me, so I decided to go without a costume and trick-or-treat by myself this year! Only it's not really as fun as I thought it would be…"

Itachi nodded in agreement.

"Hey, listen. Do you want to go trick-or-treating with me? I could make sure none of the bigger kids take your candy again. Scouts honor!" he swore, crossing his heart solemnly before the weasel.

Although Itachi sincerely doubted that this boy was any kind of scout, he knew that further quests for candy on his part would prove useless unless he had a bigger person there to protect him. He therefore nodded in agreement to Kisame's suggestion, making the shark-like boy smile. "Great! Hey, how about we play ninjas when we go to the houses? You know, like sneaking through the bushes or hiding in the shadows. We're already dressed for it; well, you are, but I can hide my face like this!" and with a smile Kisame pulled the collar of his turtleneck sweater up so high that it completely hid all of his face except for his eyes.

Itachi had not considered actually acting as the character he was pretending to be; he just thought that ninjas were cool, given that some of his ancestors had apparently been real ninjas. Besides, playing pretend would have been boring all by himself. But Kisame somehow made the idea of playing ninja sound very appealing; who knew? Maybe it would be fun.

Itachi and Kisame spent the next hour going around to all the houses in the neighborhood they could walk to, sneaking through foliage and crawling under fences (and nearly getting stuck there more than once too). By the end of the night both boys were tired, covered in twigs, and extremely laden down with candy. "Good haul this year," Kisame remarked with a grin as he peered into his sack. "Hey, do you wanna come over to my place to look over everything we got? My mom's really nice; she won't mind if you come over at all!"

Itachi was tired and beginning to long for home, but he was also having an awful lot of fun with this Kisame person. Besides, if he went straight home with all this candy, his mom would take the entire jack-o-lantern and put it on the top shelf of the cabinet where he couldn't reach, only letting the weasel have one or two pieces at a time! It was positively inhumane. Itachi decided to go with Kisame then; at least this way he could stuff his face with sweets before his mom could stop him.

Kisame's house was only a few blocks over; he probably lived within half a mile of Itachi, if the weasel's estimation was right. The shark didn't hesitate to open the door and walk straight inside, calling out for his mom as Itachi followed after him. "Mom, I'm home!"

A woman with pale skin and yellow eyes like Kisame's entered from the kitchen, where Itachi could smell something pumpkin-based being cooked. "Hey sweetie! How was-oh, who is this?"

"This is my new friend, mom," Kisame explained with a grin. "We went trick-or-treating together!"

"Is that so? And does this friend have a name?"

"Er, ah…actually, I never asked. Hey, little ninja, what's your name?"

Itachi reached into his candy bucket and fished out a small Velcro wallet, which he immediately handed to Kisame's mother. Raising a brow, the woman nevertheless took the wallet and opened it to reveal a small identification card inside. "Itachi Uchiha, huh?"

"He's not really talkative," Kisame explained. "Can he stay over for a while? Please? We have to see what kind of candy we got!"

"That depends on what Mrs. Uchiha says," Mrs. Hoshigaki replied as she looked over Itachi's card. "I'll give her a call and let her know that her son is over here. You two can play in the living room until she picks Itachi up."

"Yay! C'mon Itachi, let's go!" And for the umpteenth time that night, Itachi followed after the shark as the larger boy dashed off again.

The shark and weasel made camp on the living room carpet, inverting their containers and dividing the candy into piles according to Kisame's system. "Ok, so we'll make three piles each," Kisame had decided. "One pile will be the candy we definitely want to keep, one pile will be the candy we're willing to trade, and the last pile will be raisins or whatever other yucky stuff we got. Mom can have that stuff." Itachi immediately began to divvy up his pile according to the system, pleased to see that this year very little went into the third pile.

-n-

Not even half an hour later Mikoto was knocking on the door to the Hoshigaki house, adjusting her weight from one foot to the other in an attempt to alleviate the swelling in her poor feet. "This baby can't come soon enough," she muttered to herself as the door opened. "Hello, you must be Mrs. Hoshigaki!"

"Please, call me Hana," Kisame's mother replied. "And that would make you Mrs. Uchiha?"

"Oh, Mikoto is fine!"

"Pleased to meet you. The boys are in the living room dividing up their spoils," Hana explained as she showed Mikoto into the house.

"Oh dear; Itachi's probably stuffed himself on candy already because he knows I'll limit how much he can have."

"Same with Kisame," Hana replied. "In fact, I'm pretty sure he ate most of his candy on the way back here."

"Sorry if I sounded a bit upset on the phone," Mikoto apologized. "I sent Itachi out with a group of parents and their kids tonight since I couldn't take him myself, so hearing that he'd come home with somebody else was quite the shock. I'm going to need to talk to a few people about this, let me tell you…"

"I'd imagine. This is actually the first year I've let Kisame go on his own. I figure he's big enough to avoid the bullies now, and this neighborhood is so safe that most of the dangers he'd encounter are just in my head."

"I know that feeling," Mikoto replied with a laugh. "Still, I'm glad the boys were together. Safety in numbers, you know?"

The two women finally entered the living room to find both boys sitting on the floor, staring at each other with the intensity of two rivals during the showdown of an old Western movie. "Three caramels for the gummy bears," Kisame offered with a perfect poker face.

Itachi shook his head.

"All right, two caramels and two pieces of taffy."

Itachi took a minute to think about this offer, but once again shook his head.

"Ok, how about two caramels, two taffy bits, and mini chocolate bar for the bears and the bag of candy corn?" Itachi finally nodded in agreement, and the trade was made. "Sweet, I love gummy bears!"

"Itachi, there you are," Mikoto called out. Both boys looked to her and Itachi calmly waved from his seat on the floor, as if he went home with mysterious blue children every day. "Hello dear, I'm Itachi's mother," Mikoto said to Kisame.

"I'm Kisame!" the shark happily stated.

"Kisame, it's time for Itachi to go home," Mrs. Hoshigaki explained.

"Aww, but we're having fun!" Kisame complained as Itachi nodded in agreement. Truthfully, the weasel was rather sad to have to part from his new friend already. "Just five more minutes, please?"

"You two can play together later," Mikoto promised. "But right now it's nearly ten o'clock, and I'm certain that both of you are going to be very tired once your sugar rush wears off." As if on cue Kisame let out a huge yawn, and Itachi's eyes began to droop. "See what I mean?"

"Bed time," Kisame's mother declared. "Put your candy in the kitchen and go brush your teeth, Kisame."

The shark grumbled but scooped up his candy and began walking towards the kitchen. "Bye Itachi!" he called back to his friend.

Itachi waved goodbye until he was certain Kisame was out of sight, making both mothers smile. "I do hope my son was behaved while he was over here," Mikoto said as she began ushering Itachi towards the front door.

"He was an absolute angel. I'm so glad he came over," Hana stated, voice dropping to a whisper so Itachi wouldn't hear her. "My son doesn't have many friends because of his looks, so for someone to be so kind to Kisame is a rarity."

"Itachi's not very good with people either," Mikoto replied, voice just as quiet. "He's quite shy, so it's hard for him to make friends."

"In that case, it seems like our boys were very lucky to find each other," Hana remarked with a small laugh.

"Definitely. Tomorrow's Sunday, isn't it? How about I have Kisame come over for a bit in the afternoon, since you were so kind to look after Itachi tonight?"

"Oh, that sounds wonderful! Will 2 o'clock work? Hopefully he'll have slept off any stomachaches from the candy by then," Hana suggested.

"Perfect! Say goodbye Itachi; it's time for us to leave."

Itachi silently waved goodbye to Mrs. Hoshigaki, whom he was beginning to like almost as much as Kisame. Mikoto led him out of the house and to their car, where she buckled him into his car seat before climbing into the driver's seat and pulling out of the driveway. Hana watched them until they were halfway down the block, and when Itachi looked up at the windows of the house he was surprised to see Kisame waving at him from the upstairs window.

Smiling, Itachi waved back and decided that maybe this Halloween hadn't been so bad after all.


End file.
